


kaleidoscope heart

by lesbiankavinsky



Category: Lovely Little Losers, Nothing Much to Do
Genre: Alternate Universe, Divorce, F/F, F/M, Getting Together, Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, POV Alternating, Slow Burn, they have issues to work through okay, with lots of pain on the way there
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-26
Updated: 2016-07-04
Packaged: 2018-05-29 06:24:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6363061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbiankavinsky/pseuds/lesbiankavinsky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bea & Peter are each other's first loves, but not each other's true loves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> The lovely Daisy, who was my partner in crime in coming up with this AU, made a playlist for it [here](http://8tracks.com/peterdonaldson/blood-of-blue-and-green)

Jaquie stops outside the door to Bea’s dressing room for a moment, adjusting her corsage. She smoothes her hair and her dress before putting her hand on the doorknob. Even then, she doesn’t enter. She’s aware that she’s stalling, but that doesn’t make her feel any more prepared to go inside. There’s probably nothing that could make her feel ready to see Bea in her wedding dress. Still, Jaquie is the maid of honor, so it has to be done. It has to be done, she tells herself, and she goes inside.

Bea is sitting at the vanity, fully dressed, her hair and makeup done. She makes eye contact with Jaquie in the mirror and smiles, but it’s a nervous, wavering thing and Jaquie has to look away. Of course Bea looks painfully beautiful with lace across her collarbones, her hair curled and pinned away from her face. 

“Ready?” She asks.

“Nearly,” Bea replies, though Jaquie can’t think what else there could be to do. She’s ready for the day to be over so she can go to the reception and get smashed and possibly make out with one of the other bridesmaids. Possibly the one who’s in love with Peter. There’d be something poetic about that. Or maybe just sad. 

She tries to stop thinking about that and asks, “Is there anything I can do to help?”

Bea doesn’t respond but stands up and turns to face Jaquie, fidgeting with her dress as she moves. “You look nice,” she says, and reaches out to tuck a strand of Jaquie’s hair behind her ear. Most of it is tied into a neat bun at the base of her neck, but it seems like some of it is always escaping. “Really nice.”

Jaquie closes her eyes for a moment and tells herself to stop reading into every little thing that Bea does because Bea is getting married and she should have given up on the idea of Bea liking her a long, long time ago. Peter is Bea’s first love, and she’s never going to give up on him. Jaquie still remembers the night when, lying together in the pillow fort they’d made with Peter and Costa and the rest of their friends, Bea had whispered to her, “Peter and I, we’re meant to be.” Bea’s hand had been entwined in hers and she’d been half happy that the others were out getting snacks, half desperate for them to get back to relieve a little of the strain on her heart. When they finally did return, she’d gone to sit in the bathroom and cry for a few minutes. She doesn’t let people see her get upset, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.

Her eyes aren’t closed for long, barely more than a blink, but somewhere in that time, Bea leans forward and kisses her. Jaquie’s eyes fly open, but she doesn’t move away. Bea’s hand catches at her dress, pulling her closer and Jaquie complies, putting her arms around Bea’s waist and kissing her back. Not thinking about it, just kissing her. Jaquie has been waiting a long time to not think about this. After a moment, Bea pulls back and touches Jaquie’s mouth with the tips of her fingers.

“I’ve completely messed up your makeup. Mine too, probably.”

“Bea,” Jaquie says, trying to manage her voice. “Bea, you’re getting married.”

Bea nods. “I know. Peter’s the one for me. I’m sure about that.”

Jaquie stares at her, incredulous. “So...why? Why did you --”

“I’m sorry,” Bea says, shaking her head. She doesn’t make eye contact, focusing instead on her mouth as she wipes lipstick away from around Jaquie’s lips. “I just. I guess I got a weird cold feet thing and you and I....” 

She leaves the sentence unfinished and Jaquie honestly doesn’t know how to fill in the blank. You and I never got our chance. Or, You and I have always been such good friends. Or, You and I should have been in a different universe. Jaquie doesn’t often find herself not knowing what Bea means, but now is one of those moments. She does ask, just says, “Yeah.”

“All better, I think,” Bea says, and moves back to the vanity to wipe her fingers off on a tissue and fix her own lipstick. Jaquie stares at her, but Bea seems entirely oblivious and somehow, inexplicably, calm. When she’s finished, Bea stands back up again and holds her hand out to Jaquie. “Okay, let’s go.”

They make their way up the stairs from the basement of the synagogue and nothing quite feels real to Jaquie, the memory of Bea’s lips on hers or the railing under her hand. Bea’s fingers gripping her own, shaking just a little bit. Shaking the right amount for a wedding day, just a little case of the jitters. Not shaking the way you’d expect a bride’s hand to shake after kissing her maid of honor instead of her husband-to-be. Nothing quite feels real, and nothing makes sense. 

The ceremony feels unending and painful. If Jaquie isn’t watching Bea, she has to see Peter’s exuberant smile, or Costa sitting next to her, crying a little. Crying the way you should cry at your friend’s wedding, out of happiness for them instead of grief for yourself. Instead, she traces the line of the green wire attaching the garlands of flowers to the chuppah, the slight crack in the nail polish on her right pinky. She’s grateful beyond words when finally Peter smashes the glass under his foot and the thing is over. 

She somehow manages to get through her speech at the reception and spends most of the rest of the night in a corner with Costa, getting thoroughly drunk. “Hey Costa,” she says, slinging an arm around him after her fifth glass of champagne. “You’ll never guess what happened to me today.”

Costa, who’s had considerably less to drink, looks down at her fondly. “What happened?”

“Bea kissed me.”

He looks startled. “Wait, really? Oh god. Oh god that’s not good.”

“Mhmmmm.”

He sits her up in her chair and leans forward, his usual overeager self. “So. How are you feeling about that.”

“Pretty shit, given that I’m in love with her.”

“Oh,” he says, more softly, leaning back a little. “I’m sorry. But I can sympathize.”

“What, you’re in love with Bea? Didn’t know you went for girls.”

He rolls his eyes. “I don’t,” he says pointedly. 

“Oh,” Jaquie says. “Oh!” She pauses and tries to think through all the alcohol. “You looked happy at the wedding though.”

He shrugs. “I love him, so I’m happy for him. But. I’m sad, also.”

“You’re a better person than me,” Jaquie says. “I couldn’t even manage to be happy for them. And I should be. I really should be.” 

“You can’t help what you feel,” Costa says.

“Yeah, but look at them. Bea was right when she said they’re meant to be. They’re sort of people who are just supposed to be together.”

And Jaquie believes that. She believes that when Bea and Peter have a daughter, and she believes it when they move into their first house together. She keeps believing it when Peter signs on to a touring production and is away for a year, and when they start fighting more and more often. She believes it because it’s too painful to believe anything else. She believes it right up until the day Bea calls her to tell her they’re getting divorced.


	2. inside is not a heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter has loved Bea through their many breakups and reunions, through her difficult pregnancy, through their clashing schedules and the stress of raising a child. And he loves her now, as he signs their divorce papers. He never used to understand when people said that sometimes love isn’t enough. He understands now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter titles are pulled from the Sara Bareilles album "Kaleidoscope Heart" because, as should be obviously from the fic title, it's been very ~~formative for this story

Peter has loved Beatrice Duke for his entire life. He used to tell the story like this: he saw her on the playground in primary school and fell in love instantly. He proposed to her that year with a plastic ring that he got as a prize in a cereal box, but she turned him down, saying she wanted to consider all her options. And she had. In the end, she chose him. They started dating in their last year before uni, and promised each other that they’d stay together no matter where they went to school. Peter, though he’d never admitted it to anyone, made his choice based on Bea. It was a good school, and he never had any reason to regret going there, but it wasn’t for the drama program or the football team or any of the other things that he came to love about the university that he chose it. He chose it so that they would be together. 

Peter has loved Bea through their many breakups and reunions, through her difficult pregnancy, through their clashing schedules and the stress of raising a child. And he loves her now, as he signs their divorce papers. He never used to understand when people said that sometimes love isn’t enough. He understands now. 

Bea’s suitcase is sitting by the door while she’s upstairs with Miriam, saying goodbye. Before they finalized the divorce, they’d agreed that they should keep living in the house for the sake of their daughter, but they need some time apart for now. Hero is taking Bea on a roadtrip and Peter is staying here. In Bea’s absence, he’ll fix up the spare room and move into it so she can have their old bedroom when she comes back. They’re still trying to figure out how to explain it to Miriam. 

A knock comes at the door and Peter opens it to find Hero standing outside looking strangely sunshiney. Not that it’s strange for Hero to look like sunshine -- that’s just the way she is -- but it’s strange for Peter to see such brightness in this house. She pulls him into a hug. “Hi, Peter,” she says softly.

“Hey Hero. Good to see you.”

“You too. You holding up okay?”

Peter shrugs. “I’ll be alright. One way or another, you know?”

She squeezes his arm. “You and Bea are gonna get through this, I promise. You’ve got a lot of friends who want to see you happy.”

“Thanks,” Peter says. He’s never been good at accepting people’s kindness when it comes to his divorce. The whole thing is awful, and there’s no way to make it less awful. The best person to sympathize with, he’s found, is Jaquie. She just takes him out to the pub and buys him a drink and they sit in silence. But he doesn’t know how to explain to someone like Hero that that’s what he needs right now. 

“Is Bea almost ready?”

“Yeah, she should be down soon.” They stand for a moment in silence before Peter asks, “How’s Ursula?”

Hero brightens. “Oh! She’s well. Busy with schoolwork, of course, but I think she likes it that way. She’s been working a lot on her portfolio.” 

Ursula is in graduate school for photography, and she and Hero seem to be as happy together as ever. Peter takes a kind of masochistic pleasure in seeing them together, arms always around each other. That, he thinks, is what  _ meant to be _ actually looks like. Not like him and Bea. 

Footsteps on the stairs warn him that she’s approaching. He turns to see her holding Miriam’s hand and speaking quietly to her. As Bea enters the kitchen she looks up and smiles at Hero. “Hero! How are you?” 

Miriam drops her mother’s hand and runs to Hero, who leans down to pick her up and balance her on her hip. “How’s my Miriam?” She asks. 

“Auntie Hero! Can I come with you and Mummy?”

“Oh, I’m sorry sweetie, it’s not that kind of trip. You’re going to have so much fun here at home with your dad. Maybe if you ask him nicely he’ll make you cupcakes like the ones he made for my birthday.”

“I’ll take my bags out to the car,” Bea says, leaning over to kiss Hero on the cheek before she’s out the door. Hero makes at an apologetic face at him before she turns her attention back to Miriam. “I’ll make sure your Mummy sends you postcards and gets you presents from all the places we visit. Does that sound like a good plan?”

Miriam agrees grudgingly and Bea comes back in. She takes Miriam from Hero’s arms and gives her a last goodbye kiss before sending her back up to her room. 

“I’m gonna go wait in the car,” Hero says, tactful as ever. “Take care, Peter.”

“Drive safe,” Peter says, and watches the door close behind her.

“So,” Bea says, taking a deep breath. “I’ll see you in a couple weeks, then. Call if anything happens. And if you could put Miriam on the phone every couple days, that’d be nice.”

“Yeah, of course,” Peter says, wishing he had something, anything to say. 

“Don’t look at me like that,” she says softly. “It’s not the end of the world, you know.”

Peter has no idea how to explain just how much it feels like the end of the world to him. Bea has been his entire world for as long as he can remember, and as glad as he is that the whole process of the divorce is finished, the finality of it is more painful than he could have imagined. Somehow, he kept thinking that they would call things off at the last minute, that he wouldn’t really lose her. 

“Drive safe,” he says, and she turns to go out. 

Standing alone in his kitchen, Peter feels as though he’s folding in on himself, carefully tucking away all his love for Bea so that the sharp edges of it can’t cut him. He’s not sure how long he stands there before going up to Miriam’s bedroom. She’s sitting on the floor, playing with her current favorite toy: a rubik’s cube, which she doesn’t actually try to solve, but likes to turn this way and that. She’s a big fan of colors right now. 

“Hey honey pie,” he says, lifting her into his arms. “Time for a nap.”

“Mmm,” she hums into his shoulder sleepily. “Tell me a story?”

He lies down in her little bed, bending his knees so his feet don’t dangle off the end. She settles easily onto his chest and he continues the story of the adventure of her teddy bear that he’s been telling her for the past few weeks, petting her hair. It doesn’t take her long to fall asleep, but he stays there, holding her, for a while. He isn’t ready for the emptiness of the house. Of course, it’s not as though it’s the first time he’s been in the house without Bea, but it’s impossible for this time  _ not _ to feel different. He wishes he had something to do. Usually he’s absurdly busy, but he’s in a lull now, and it’s horrible timing. He needs a distraction. His last show wrapped up a week ago and the next one doesn’t begin rehearsals until the start of next month. For now, he has Miriam to keep him busy but that’s only because it’s a weekend. On Monday she’ll be back at preschool. Maybe he could do more baking, or more writing, or more football. Maybe he could take up knitting. Maybe he could catch up with old friend like he’s been meaning to for so many months. 

Twirling Miriam’s hair between his fingers, he wonders idly if Costa is in town. They’ve been friends since uni and occasionally work together on shows so they’re not really out of touch, but Costa spends more time working on travelling productions or jobs in theaters in Wellington than he does in his apartment in Auckland, so they actually don’t see each other that often. It’d be nice to have him and Jaquie over sometime, get the old gang back together. Like the old days, he thinks, though nostalgia is a dangerous thing for him. Carefully, he moves Miriam’s head from his chest and leaves her room on tiptoe before pulling his phone from his pocket to text Costa. The reply is almost immediate.

“Yes!!!! Am in Wellington until 23rd, would of course love to see you!!! And the lovely Queen J!!!!!” 

Peter smiles at Costa’s distinctive texting style. They make tentative arrangements for a dinner the following week, which Peter texts Jaquie about before putting his phone away. He feels better than he would have expected from such little contact, and decides to make cupcakes for dessert as Hero had suggested. Baking always comforts him, and Miriam will be happy. This is his chance to spoil her, after all. Bea, despite her atrocious eating habits through their uni days, had decided to get healthy when Miriam was born, and as a result, their daughter’s diet has been obnoxiously nutritiously sound. As he’s getting the ingredients out of the cabinet, his phone buzzes and he pulls it out to find a response from Jaquie that reads simply, “works 4 me.” 

As he begins to make the batter, he thinks about how grateful is for Jaquie. She’s one of several friends of his and Bea’s that are genuinely mutual. She’d met them independently -- Peter in drama class and Bea in physics class -- and learned only later that they were dating. She’d refused absolutely and honestly to take sides in the divorce. Because it had been fairly amicable as divorces go, neither of them had really made enemies of each other’s friends, but Peter is smart enough to know that he’ll never be as close to Hero or Ursula or Meg as he had been before the divorce. He’s made his peace with that. All of them (with the possible exception of Meg) are still friendly with him. But Jaquie is different. Jaquie has been a blessing through the entire process, supporting them both and refusing to buy into the idea that to help one is to betray the other. 

When Miriam wakes from her nap and comes downstairs, the two of them sit together in front of the oven to watch the cupcakes cooking. He tells her that Costa and Jaquie are coming over for dinner next week and she nods happily, absorbed by the cooking process. He’s not sure how he got a kid whose attention can be utterly held by something as boring as watching batter bake. She’ll be glad when they come over, he thinks. She’s always liked Jaquie, and though she hasn’t seen Costa very often, he’s entertaining enough. 

That night, after Miriam goes to bed, Peter sits in the living room with the TV on, not really watching, trying to resist the urge to call Bea. He tries to justify it to himself. He should make sure that they made it safely to their first hotel, let her know that Miriam is okay. The truth is, he just wants to hear her voice. More to prevent himself from calling her than any other reason, he calls Jaquie.

“What’s up?” Jaquie says after picking up on the first ring.

“Can we talk?”

“Um, yeah. Everything okay?”

“Yeah. No. I’m ridiculously not over Bea.”

“Ahh.” There’s a long silence on Jaquie’s end. “She’s not going to come back to you, Peter.” It’s strange to hear Jaquie try to be gentle. She isn’t very good at it, but Peter can tell she’s making an effort.

“Yeah,” Peter says. “I know.” If he’s being totally honest with himself, though, there’s still a little pitiful spark of hope buried deep inside him -- one he should have quashed a long time ago.

“You know, it might not be such a good idea for you to keep living in the same house like that.”

“We have to. At least for a while. Neither of us wants to take Miriam away from the other and neither of us wants to be shipping her back and forth between houses all the time. And it’s not like either of us can really afford another place to live.”

“Yeah,” Jaquie says. “I get that. I just don’t know how you’re supposed to move on when you’re still. You know. Together.”

“And you think I should? Move on?”

Jaquie sounds like her patience is wearing thin. Peter knows she isn’t mad at him, but she’s obviously frustrated with the situation. “Peter, you’re divorced. The only girl you’ve ever dated is no longer your wife. You kind of don’t have another option. You can’t spend your entire life pining.”

“Well, technically --”

“Peter. Shut up.”

Peter sighs. “Yeah. Okay.” 

“How long is Bea gonna be away?”

“Three weeks. Why?”

“Maybe you should try some casual dating while she’s away. Just have some fun.”

“Jaquie, I just got divorced. After being married five years. To, as you pointed out, the only girl I’ve ever dated.”

“Well there was that time you made out with Costa.”

Peter picks at the stitching on the couch pillow he’s hugging. “That was nothing.”

It hadn’t quite been nothing. It’d been a game of spin the bottle in college during one of the times when he and Bea were broken up. He’d been drunk and upset and wanting to make her jealous, so he really went for it when he kissed Costa. Except that there was a small --  a very small -- moment when he’d forgotten he was doing it to piss Bea off. A moment when he was just doing it to kiss Costa. But he tries not to think about it, because it doesn’t make sense. Amazingly, it had actually worked, and he and Bea had ended the night making out in a dorm bathroom. So he didn’t -- doesn’t -- have to think about why he kissed Costa the way he did. 

“Okay, fine, I’m just saying. I think it would be good for you to be with someone other than Bea. Remember that she’s not the only person in the world who could possibly be right for you.” 

“It just feels too soon.”

“Listen, Pete, you know it’s gonna be weird to try to date once she’s back. It’s gonna be weird for a long time. Until you both adjust to the fact that you’re not together anymore. I mean  _ really  _ adjust.”

“So you think I should do it now so that she won’t know about it? I don’t feel good lying to her. She’s still my friend. She’s still my daughter’s mom.”

“You don’t have to lie. It’s not like she’s going to ask you about it.”

“Well yeah, but it still feels like --”

“Like what? Like cheating? Peter, you’re not with her anymore.”

Peter takes a deep breath and looks up at the ceiling. “Okay, fine. I’ll try. But I’m blaming you if it doesn’t go well.”

“Yeah, fine by me, I won’t care. Listen, do you want me to set you up? I can ask some of the women in my group.”

Jaquie runs an all-women’s feminist theater collective which Peter is quite frankly a little afraid of. “I thought they were all lesbians.”

“Peter!” Jaquie says, exasperated. “They’re not all lesbians. Some of them are bi. Some of them are pan. Some of them are ace or aro or both.”

“I’m not entirely wrong though, there’s not a straight woman in the entire group is there?”

“No,” Jaquie concedes. “But that’s not the same as all of them being lesbians. Respect diversity, Peter. But obviously you don’t mind dating a bi girl.”

“No,” Peter says. “I don’t.”

“Yeah, good, otherwise we wouldn’t be friends. Listen, I’ll ask around so you don’t have to go mope at a singles bar or wade into the sad depths of OkCupid. It’ll be a nice date with someone who knows your situation and isn’t looking for anything that even sort of looks like commitment.”

“You’re setting me up for a one-night stand?”

“Don’t be a prude.” 

“Okay you can’t pretend that you wouldn’t feel weird too if you were in my position.”

“You know what I’d feel weird about? The fact that I married my elementary school sweetheart.”

“Most people think it’s cute.”

“Conceptually, yes. But I think it’s best for everyone involved if you actually get the chance to date around, figure out what’s really right for you. Expecting your first love to be your only love is weird, not romantic.”

“Aren’t you full of tough love tonight.”

“You need it.” 

“Probably true.”

“Definitely true. Go to bed, Peter. And don’t call Bea.” 

“Okay. I won’t.”

“If I get a text from her saying you called -- and she would text me -- I won’t come to your dinner with Costa.”

“Oh my god, Jaquie, I’m not going to call her.” 

“I don’t trust your desperate ass.”

“Maybe your love is getting a little too tough.”

“Yeah, okay, fair. Just take care of yourself. You’re gonna be happy again.”

“Thanks. Thanks for being here.”

“Anytime.”

Peter knows she means it. She may be a little harsh sometimes, but she’d picked up on the first ring and Peter knows what that means. “I’ll see you next week, then. And I won’t call Bea until she asks me to.”

“Good. Get some rest.”

“Bye, Jaquie.”

“Bye, hon.”

Peter hangs up and slowly makes his way upstairs. He peeks into Miriam’s room for a moment to make sure she’s still sleeping then goes down the hallway to his and Bea’s room. In a few weeks, he won’t be sleeping here anymore, and in a way he’s grateful for it. There’s something painful about sleeping alone in this big bed. He’s been on the couch for a while though, so he’s at least glad to be on an actual mattress. 

He has trouble sleeping that night, unable to keep his mind off of Bea’s absence. He turns the radio on, trying to distract himself, but it doesn’t work very well. The next morning he wakes up tired.


	3. i'll be alright, just not tonight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The plan for the roadtrip had been hatched at the beginning of the divorce process. Hero and Beatrice had gone out for drinks and Bea had said that as soon as the paperwork was taken care of, she wanted to skip town and go on a Thelma and Louise style adventure, just without the romantic undertones and the driving off the edge of a cliff at the end. Hero had started planning immediately. She won’t tell Bea where they’re going, but Bea trusts that it will be a spectacular trip. Hero wouldn’t give her anything less as a reward for making it through the grueling end of her marriage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for alcohol use and references to alcoholism

When Hero’s car passes the sign announcing that they’re leaving Wellington, Bea feels like putting her head out the window and shouting for joy. It’s a long-awaited release, a breath of fresh air, giddy excitement at the idea that she might be able to reshape her life into something she wants to live. 

Hero glances over at her. “You look so much happier than you did ten minutes ago. Like when we were kids.”

Bea takes a deep breath. “Yeah. Yeah, I am. I just. I’m out, you know. I’m done with it, I’m out, I’m free. I’m going somewhere new. I’m spending time with my favorite cousin. It’s been ages since I felt this good.” 

Without taking her eyes off the road, Hero reaches over to rub Bea’s shoulder. “I’m just sorry it took this long.”

Bea shrugs. “It was a learning experience. It was necessary.” 

“And you’re sure you want to stay in the same house?”   


“Just until Miriam’s old enough that she’ll be able to deal with going back and forth between us on a regular basis. And -- I don’t know, maybe it won’t be so bad. Maybe I can learn to be friends with him again. I’d like to. Right now I’m pissed and I’m tired of him and I’ve just wanted to get to the end of this relationship for so long that I can’t really think in terms of friendship but -- one day, eventually, I think I’m gonna get there. It’d be best for Miriam if I got there. And I know it’s what Peter wants.”

“You think living together will help with that?”

“I think it’ll force us to relearn how to be around each other. And that might never happen if we completely split up.”

“So long as you’re happy.”

“I will be.” 

The plan for the roadtrip had been hatched at the beginning of the divorce process. Hero and Beatrice had gone out for drinks and Bea had said that as soon as the paperwork was taken care of, she wanted to skip town and go on a Thelma and Louise style adventure, just without the romantic undertones and the driving off the edge of a cliff at the end. Hero had started planning immediately. She won’t tell Bea where they’re going, but Bea trusts that it will be a spectacular trip. Hero wouldn’t give her anything less as a reward for making it through the grueling end of her marriage.

“Miriam seems okay,” Hero says after a brief pause in the conversation. 

“Well, she’s always happy to see you,” Bea says with a grin. Children always take well to Hero. “But yeah, she’s fine. She doesn’t really know what’s going on. She’s not old enough to get what it means that her dad’s sleeping on the couch.”

“You’re going to have to explain eventually.”

Bea shrugs. “She’ll grow up with it. It’ll just be how her family works. Honesty, I think it’s for the best that way. If it’d happened later, if she’d been older, she would have felt like she was losing something. As it is, she won’t have many memories of her parents being together. She won’t miss it.”

“I guess that’s a bright side,” Hero says tentatively, but despite the fact that she’s always looking for silver linings, she doesn’t sound entirely convinced. “Just let me know if you need help with anything. Talking to her or babysitting or whatever. She can always come stay with me and Ursula. She really likes Ursula’s cameras.”

“That’s not a problem?” Bea asks.

“Ursula lets her play with her the older models, ones she doesn’t use anymore,” Hero clarifies. “She likes to take them apart.”

“Yeah, well, she’s always been good at entertaining herself.” Bea thinks of Miriam with her rubik’s cube and suddenly feels a pang at the idea of being away from her for three whole weeks. She has to close her eyes and take a deep breath and remind herself how happy she is to be getting out of town to prevent herself from asking Hero to turn the car around and take her back to her daughter.

“I’m pretty sure she’s going to be a supergenius some day,” Hero says. “Like her mum.”

Bea rolls her eyes. “I’m not a supergenius, I’m just a bioengineer.”

“Same thing,” Hero says, and Bea laughs. She’ll be okay being away from Miriam. She has Hero and she knows that she can trust Peter with their daughter. Despite his flaws, he’s a good father.

“So,” Bea says. “Where are you taking me?”

“It’s a secret! You’ll have to find out as we go along.” 

“We’re going in the direction of Auckland.”

“There are a lot of things in this direction.”

“We’re totally going to Auckland, aren’t we? That’s our first stop, right?”

“Okay, fine, yes. But I wanted it to be a surprise!”

“It’s a three week trip, Hero. There will be plenty of surprises, I’m sure.”

“Okay, that’s true. We’re only going to be in Auckland for two days. Staying with Meg.”

“Oh, wonderful!” Bea says, clapping her hands. “I haven’t seen her in ages. How is she?”   


“She’s well. Excited to see you, you know. You ought to keep in better touch.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Bea says, and she does. She’s grateful that so many of her friends welcome her back with open arms even when she goes off the radar for months at a time.    


“Anyway you’ll have plenty of time to catch up. We don’t really have anything planned, I think we’re just going to hang out.”

“That sounds absolutely perfect,” Bea says. She leans her forehead against the window, watching the trees outside. Really, she can’t think of a better remedy for all the pain of the past few months than relaxing with her childhood friends. People who have been there since before Peter. There aren’t many of those. Meg has also never quite gotten along with Peter, so she’ll be ready and willing to listen to all of Bea’s complaints, which is exactly what she needs right now. Someone who will listen uncritically and join in.

The drive from Wellington to Auckland is a long one, but doable in one day. They’d left just after lunch so by Bea’s estimate they’ll be there around nine or ten at night. On the road, Bea listens to Hero chatter happily about her training program -- she’s on her way to becoming a school teacher -- and eventually, after Bea has given her permission three times, about Ursula. The two of them seem ridiculously happy together, and they’ve been engaged for a few months now. Bad timing with the divorce and all, but the world, Bea has learned, doesn’t stand still for a broken heart. It’s difficult to resent Hero, though, whose happiness has been hard earned and much deserved. 

They stop briefly for dinner along the way, bringing their burgers into the car with them and eating on the way, radio blasting. Bea knows that Hero would never have it this loud under normal circumstances, and is grateful that she doesn’t comment on it. It’s dark by the time they finally arrive in Auckland and pull up to Meg’s flat to find her sitting on the doorstep waiting for them. She stands and pulls Bea into a tight hug as soon as she’s out of the car.

“You made it,” she says softly into Bea’s ear, and Bea realizes that’s exactly what she needed to hear.

Once they’ve unloaded their bags into the guest bedroom and finished with the small talk, Meg pulls beers from the fridge and hands them around as they sit in the living room. Bea notices Hero eyeing her with some consternation, but she ignores it and opens her drink anyway.

“So,” Meg says. “It’s over.”

“Thank god,” Bea says, raising her bottle to clink it against Meg’s. “What a bloody nightmare. To Peter’s credit he didn’t drag his feet about it or anything. Once I said I was sure.”

“So he didn’t want it?” Meg asks, fiddling with her hair.

Bea shrugs. “I mean. It was mutual in a lot of ways. But he did want to keep trying. But the damage was done a long time, you know? I wasn’t going to be able to love him again after those first couple years with Miriam.” When Bea thinks of that time, she thinks of exhaustion, loneliness, a grief that she hadn’t been able to understand at the time but which she recognizes now as mourning for a life that had been, at that time, utterly inaccessible to her. A life which she had yet entirely to regain. Because while Peter’s career as a stage manager had continued after their daughter’s birth without a hitch, her’s had come to a grinding halt. She’d quit her job at the lab and devoted herself full time to care of Miriam. With Peter’s late nights and long rehearsals, it had been a necessity. Of course, she loved Miriam and felt blessed to have her, but that hadn’t made abandoning her career and losing touch with many of her friends any easier. She knows she should have asked for more help, but she’d always been proud, and it wasn’t easy. It wasn’t easy saying that Peter wasn’t who she needed him to be right then. Other stay-at-home moms didn’t seem nearly as worn out as she was, and she still can’t explain that satisfactorily. Miriam has never been the easiest child, with her meltdowns and sensitivity, and instead of seeking help, Bea’s just done her best to hide that fact because she can’t figure out a way for that not to be her fault. After all, in those first few years, she’d been raising Miriam almost singlehandedly. 

Bea takes a sip of her beer. “I just kept trying for a really long time. Even when I knew it was useless.”

“We’ve all done it,” Meg says, pulling her into a one-armed hug. “But you don’t have to deal with it anymore.”

Bea’s been hearing things like that for weeks, but for some reason this time it overwhelms her and she has to cover her mouth to keep herself from crying. She feels Hero’s hand lacing together with hers as she squeezes her eyes tight and wills herself to keep her breathing steady. When she can finally speak again, she says, “I do though. I do have to deal with it. It doesn’t just -- go away now. None of it goes away. I’m years behind where I should have been in my research, none of my colleagues take me seriously anymore, I couldn’t get my old job back. I’m still fucking depressed, I’m still fucking tired. It’s going to take  _ so long  _ to recover from this whole mess and I -- I don’t know when it’s really going to be over. When I go back in three weeks I’m still going to be living in a house with him and I don’t -- I don’t know how I’ll be able to look him in the eye, you know? Because I loved him so much. And even if I don’t know, the memory of it is -- I don’t know. I don’t know. He didn’t want to hurt me. I know he didn’t. But he did, so badly, and I don’t know how things are ever going to be okay again.” 

The others don’t say anything for a long while after that and Bea’s shaky breath is the only sound in the room. She hadn’t meant for this to happen. She hadn’t meant to get this angry and emotional, not on their first night with Meg. It’s embarrassing. All she’d wanted was to crack some bitter jokes, knowing that the other two were familiar enough with her sense of humor both to understand how deep the hurt behind those jokes went and to know they should just laugh and not try to touch the wound. Maybe she hadn’t realized just how much of a wreck she is. She can’t stop herself from crying anymore. 

As she begins to sob, messy and loud, Hero pulls her into her arms and lets Bea hide her face in her shoulder. Meg rubs her back and none of them say anything. In some part of her mind, she’d known this was going to happen. She’s been holding too much too tight to her chest for too long, and now it’s hitting her all at once. It’s a long time overdue. Finally she cries herself out and starts breathing more regularly, hiccuping a lot. 

“You, my friend, need something stronger than a beer,” Meg says, getting off the couch to go into the kitchen. Hero opens her mouth to say something but Bea squeezes her hand. 

“Not tonight,” she tells Hero softly, and Hero nods despite her obvious unease. Meg returns with a glass of whiskey and puts it into Bea’s hand. Bea raises it in thanks and drinks it a little too fast. She feels a little less wretched, a little looser. 

“Better?” Meg asks, and she nods. “So, what can we do to help?”

Bea shrugs. “I just -- I just want to have a good time, you know? I just want to not think about my fucked up life and have some fun.”

Meg grins. “I can make that happen.”

“I swear,” Bea says, rolling her eyes, “you never really left college.” Privately, she thinks that she can’t really blame Meg for that. After all, her own life has only gone downhill since graduating. 

“I’m think alcohol, huge amounts of sugar, and some really violent movies.”

Bea considers. “That sounds fantastic.”

Four hours later, Bea is the last one awake with a tub of melting ice cream in her lap, watching explosions lighting up the screen as Hero and Meg sleep on either side of her, Meg’s head in her lap and Hero’s on her shoulder. She’s sufficiently aware to be grateful that she isn’t sober. If she were, this would be the moment when the sadness would creep back in after she’d allowed herself to be distracted. When the credits start rolling she shakes Meg and Hero awake.

“Bedtime,” she says, and Hero gets unsteadily to her feet and goes into the guest bedroom to retrieve her toothbrush. 

Meg looks up at her resentfully and just says, “No,” before falling back asleep. 

“Fine,” Bea says, mostly to herself. “You can just sleep on the couch.” She gets up to put away the ice cream and drapes the blanket over Meg before going to join Hero in the bedroom. As small as the bed is for two people, Bea’s glad that she won’t be sleeping alone tonight.

“You doing alright?” Hero asks after the lights are out.

“Yeah, I guess. Good as I could be.”

“Don’t drink too much, okay?”

“Hero.”

“I just -- you’ve been doing really well lately and I don’t want you to fall back into old habits.”

“I won’t,” Bea says, but she knows it’s a weak promise to make when she’s currently still tipsy. 

“I’m here for you if you ever want to talk about it. And you know if you ever want to call your sponser --”

“Hero, I know,” Bea says. There’s not much she wants to talk about less right now. “I’ll be fine. You’re here with me, you won’t let anything happen.”   


“Okay,” Hero says, and she doesn’t say anything more. Instead she drapes an arm around Bea’s waist and pulls her close and they fall asleep together the way they used to as children, back when they were inseparable. Maybe, Bea thinks, they could be that way again. She falls asleep quickly after the long day and the drinks she’d lost count of and sleeps long and sound.

They wake late the next morning to the sun coming in through their window and find Meg, somewhat surprisingly, already in the kitchen, looking miserable and eating a piece of sausage with her hands. 

“How you doing there?” Bea asks, grinning.

“Shut up,” Meg says. “How do you not at least have a headache.”

“Two big glasses of water before bed,” Bea says, tapping her temple. “Works every time.”

Meg keeps glaring and takes another bite of her sausage. Hero sits at the other chair at the kitchen table as Bea opens the fridge to pull out a carton of orange juice and pours herself a glass.

“So, what’s the plan for today?” She asks, and Hero perks up.

“Oh! I had some ideas. So I was thinking we could go back to the high school and look around, and go to the beach if it’s warm enough.” 

“That sounds good,” Meg says. “Bea?”

Bea takes a moment longer than really necessary to finish her drink of orange juice. She’s grateful to be back in Auckland to see Meg, but she hadn’t really thought about the consequences of returning here. After all, she only found out yesterday that she would be here. It’s been a while since she visited, and now, thinking about the high school and the beach, she realizes how haunted by Peter this place is for her. Beyond the spot behind the high school where they’d first kissed, the pier where he’d proposed to her, there’s a hundred ordinary memories of him in every part of this city. She wishes suddenly that she’d never come back, that she and Hero were somewhere else, far away. But she bites that all back and smiles. “Sounds good to me,” she says. 

“Lovely,” Hero says with her too-lovely smile. “Do you want anything else for breakfast, Meg?” She asks, frowning at Meg’s single piece of sausage. 

“If you want to make something,” Meg says.

“I can make eggs and toast, maybe?” Hero says, already on her feet and on her way to the breadbox. 

Bea says, “Sounds good,” again, a little more genuine this time. At least she has a little time in the safe haven of Meg’s flat before she has to deal with all the ghosts of this city. 


	4. not looking back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So, you looking forward to seeing Peter?”
> 
> Costa smiles at the sound of her voice. It’s been too long since they spoke. “I’m always looking forward to seeing Peter.”
> 
> “You’re hopeless.”
> 
> “I’m not hopeless, Jaquie, I’m fine.”

When asked about his love life, Costa generally says that he’s married to his work. It keeps him busy and he loves it, so he doesn’t often regret the degree to which it consumes his life. He dated a few guys in college and after, but it’s been a while now since he’s been with anyone. It’s been even longer since he was in love with anyone. Truth be told, the last person he really loved was Peter, but he doesn’t like to think about that. Too messy. He’d gotten over that a long time ago, because Peter is straight and married and Costa makes the most of life, and that means not spending years pining over someone he’ll never have. Anyway, they don’t see much of each other these days. They’ve worked together professionally a few times but they both have busy schedules so if they don’t see each other in the theater, they usually only meet up every couple months, usually when Jaquie ropes them both into going to dinner or a show with her.

He hadn’t been sure what to do when he’d gotten the news about Peter and Bea’s divorce. It had come as a surprise both because they’d seemed so right together whenever he’d seen them and because he hadn’t been around to watch the decline of their marriage. When he heard, the first person he called was Jaquie, not Peter, in order to ask her what to do. He and Peter been close in college, and though they hadn’t lost touch, they didn’t have the kind of friendship they used to. He had no idea how to react, what to tell Peter, or if he should even call. In the end, he’d gone to visit Peter with Jaquie, and they’d fallen back into the old patterns of friendship like they always did when it was the three of them together.

The text he gets from Peter inviting him for dinner is the first time Costa has heard from him since that get-together. He gets it when he’s at the theater, on break during tech week. The show will be over in a week, so he settles with Peter on a date after closing and puts it in his pocket calendar. He’s about to put his phone away when it rings and Jaquie’s picture flashes on the screen.

“Hello?”

“So, you looking forward to seeing Peter?”

Costa smiles at the sound of her voice. It’s been too long since they spoke. “I’m always looking forward to seeing Peter.”

“You’re hopeless.”

“I’m not _hopeless,_ Jaquie, I’m fine.”

“I haven’t forgotten how moon-eyed you used to be over him at uni.”

“It’s been years. Besides, I’m too busy to be tragically heartbroken over a straight boy. Have I told you about my current production?”

“No. Should I be scared?”

“Hey! My shows are good. How long has it been since you’ve seen one of them?”

“Couple years, I think.”

“I’ve grown, you know.”

“Remember that time you cast me as the goddess Athena? In a production of _The Crucible_? Set in 17th century Russia?”

“I was experimenting.”

“Athena has nothing to do with _The Crucible_ and _The Crucible_ has nothing to do with 17th century Russia.”

“I think you’d like my shows now. This one has an all-female cast.”

“With a male director?”

“No, I’m producing, actually.”

“You really have grown up. Listen, I’ll come see it if you send me dates.”

“You’re a darling.”

“I just wanted to make sure you were feeling okay about the dinner.”

“You’ve never checked in about it before.”

“Yeah, well.” There’s a pause. “Things have changed. He’s single.”

“That doesn’t really change anything, Jaquie. Well, not for me, at least. He’s still straight.”

“You sure about that?”

“Unless you know something I don’t know.”

“I just never assumed.”

Costa sighs. “It’s not an assumption. He told me. Very clearly. Several times.”

“Alright.”

“ _Do_ you know something?” 

“I just -- I’m just kind of worried about him. What he’s going to do post-Bea.”

“He’s got you,” Costa says.

“It’s not the same.”

“Yeah,” Costa replies, voice soft. “I know.”

“Anyway, I’ll be seeing you at the show.”

“If you tell me what day works best for you, I’ll send you the tickets.”

“Ohh! Perks of knowing the producer.”

“Aren’t you lucky,” Costa says with a grin.

“I know I am. Go crush tech week, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Bye.”

That night, Costa gets home around one in the morning. He’s half-asleep as he brushes his teeth, but he’s aware that it could be worse. It has been worse, on more than one occasion. The exhaustion of tech week is an inescapable part of theater, and he honestly likes it. Part of not having much of a life outside the theater is being happiest when his work doesn’t leave him enough time to get lonely. Weeks like this, he gets home late at night and falls asleep as soon as he gets into bed and is back up in the morning to take his scooter (the one Peter and Jaquie always used to make fun of) back to the theater to deal with set problems and lighting problems and costume problems and negligent actors. It’s hectic and exhilarating and it leaves no space for sadness. He appreciates that. 

Once the show wraps up its single weekend of performances, he’ll have two weeks to get rested and pack up for the touring production that he’s joining. Though he knows he’ll need the sleep and is looking forward to his dinner with Peter and Jaquie, he’s dreading those two weeks more than he’s ever dreaded tech. There’ll be too much time alone in his flat, too few distractions. It’s not that he feels his life is empty -- it’s just that what fills his life isn’t nearly as constant as he’d like it to be.

He climbs into bed and pulls the covers up, but he doesn’t fall asleep as quickly as he usually would after a day like this. Maybe he is lonely, he thinks. Maybe that’s what the nighttime sadness is. Certainly he misses the greater camaraderie that came with college theater. He doesn’t often do multiple productions with the same people, and he misses that consistency, the way relationships would build naturally over time instead of coming into existence over a rapid six weeks and then quickly dissolving. It’s not like he doesn’t have any close friends, though. Jaquie’s always made an effort to keep in touch. His last thought as he falls asleep is that he can’t forget to get her tickets for the show.

Jaquie comes to the show on Saturday night. He spots her in the lobby and says a quick hello before she goes to find her seat, securing a promise from her that she’ll tell him what she thinks after it’s over. He knows, of course, that there’s no real need to make her promise. It would be hard to stop Jaquie from saying what she thinks about a piece of art even if you wanted to. He’s a little nervous that she won’t like it after all but when he sees her after the show, the huge smile on her face puts his mind at ease. Pulling him into a tight hug, she says, “That was great! Like it was actually really good. I’m in shock.”

“Don’t be mean.”

“I’m giving you a compliment,” Jaquie protests, fanning herself with her program.

“Beautifully packaged as an insult, yes.” But he’s smiling, because he honestly never thought Jaquie would enjoy any theater he’s involved in.

“That’s what you get for befriending someone who never gets a bad show,” she replies. “Listen, when you’re done here, let me take you out for a drink. We need to talk.”

Costa raises his eyebrows. “Oh?”

“Nothing bad, don’t worry. I’ll let you do your producer stuff, met me out front after?”

Costa nods and Jaquie wades back into the crowd, heading for the front door.

It takes him a while to wrap everything up at the theater, but she’s still waiting for him when he’s done. She puts her arm through his and together they walk to the pub on the corner.

“So, tell me how I missed your evolution from Russian Arthur Miller to legitimate theater?”

“Oh, it happened slowly,” Costa says. “You never came to my shows, that’s how you missed it.”

“I didn’t realize you were growing up.”

“Should’ve had a little more faith in me. So what did you need to tell me?”

Jaquie sighs. “Well, the problem is that I can’t exactly tell you.”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean that it’s sort of a secret. I just wanted to tell you that you should come to dinner at Peter’s -- prepared.”

“Prepared for what? A natural disaster?”

“News,” Jaquie says cryptically.

“Bad news?”

“No. Just news.”

Costa holds open the door for her. “So you’re taking me out for drinks to tell me that Peter is going to tell me -- something. And you can’t say what.”

“Mhm.”

“Jaquie, that’s possibly the most useless warning I’ve ever received.”

“Mhm.”

They get a booth and order their drinks and a little food. “So why did you tell me anything?” Costa asks.

Jaquie shrugs. “I guess I just felt strange not saying anything about it.”

Costa wishes she hadn’t said anything at all. Now he won’t be able to stop wondering and worrying about it until dinner on Thursday, but he doesn’t say so. “I guess I’ll find out soon enough.”

They drink for a while in silence before Jaquie says, “You’re leaving town soon, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, a gig in Christchurch.”

“That should be fun.”

“I hope so, yes. I’ll be gone for a couple months, not too long.”

“It seems like you’re hardly ever in Wellington these days.”

Costa shrugs. “I like to keep moving. FInding new audiences, new theaters, new people. Honestly I think the biggest way I’ve changed since our uni days is that I was so set in my ways back then. So sure about how I wanted a show to be done. I’m sure you remember I wasn’t very, ah, good at taking criticism. I’m not like that anymore. I’m always looking for ways to get better. To make better art.”

Jaquie smiles at him. “I can tell, you know. It’s good. I’m proud of you.”

Costa smiles and puts his hand to his heart. “Thank you. That means a great deal coming from you. You’re being so nice to me tonight.”

Jaquie laughs. “Your standards must be low.”

“Don’t make fun,” Costa says, and takes a sip. “But yes, the travelling is good. Though I do feel like all my friends are in Wellington so it does get a bit difficult being away from all of you. I think maybe if I weren’t always flying off somewhere else -- we’d all be a bit closer, you know?”

Jaquie plays with the base of her glass. “Yeah, that might be true. I guess it’s just a question of your priorities. And if your priority is work -- that’s okay, you know?”

Costa nods. “It is. For now. It’s hard to imagine it not being that way but -- you never know, I suppose.” There’s a moment of silence, then he asks, “So how have you been?”

“Oh, you know, alright,” Jaquie replies, not quite looking at him. “Being there for Bea and Peter as much as I can. Which is quite a juggling act, let me tell you. The trek toward my Ph.D. continues to be long and mildly torturous. Overall I have to say, so far, not a fan of adulthood.”

“It can’t be all bad,” Costa says. “The freedom’s nice.”

“Please,” Jaquie tips the rest of her drink into her mouth. “Freedom is filing your taxes without help and realizing how profoundly lonely you are in the vast sea of humanity.”

Costa smiles indulgently. There was a time when he was better at matching Jaquie’s sense of humor. “That’s why you have to keep busy. The void can’t catch you if you’re always on the move.”

Jaquie squints at him a little. “I think I’m beginning to understand your schedule a little better. Anyway, the big perks of being a grown-up, as far as I can tell, are being able to buy alcohol and candy bars without anyone trying to stop you.”

“Can’t be terribly good for your health, can it?”

“Whatever,” Jaquie replies. “I work out. It’ll be fine.”

“Seriously,” Costa says, reaching out his hand to take Jaquie’s. “You don’t sound like you’re doing so well.”

Jaquie shakes her head. “It’s fine. I’ll be fine. It just hasn’t been the best year, you know?”

Costa smiles sympathetically. “It isn’t over yet, you know.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Jaquie says with a characteristic turn of her head.

“How’s Bea doing?” Costa asks.

“You care?”

Costa makes a face. “We were never that close but yes, I care that she’s okay.”

“She’s been better. She’s been worse.”

“That’s a very _Jaquie_ summary of it.”

“She’s on a road trip right now. Hero’s taking her back to Auckland and then out into the mountains to do some hiking.”

“That sounds good,” Costa says. “Sounds therapeutic.”

“That’s the goal, at least. I’m still not sure it’s the best thing for Bea to go back to Auckland right now, but I didn’t tell Hero that.”

“Why not?”

“Well, part of the goal of the trip is to get away from Peter, right? Well, they grew up in Auckland. It’s a lot of memories to be dealing with right now. I think the mountains will be good though. Nothing like high altitudes to clear your head.”

“I hope so.”

“You’ll be gone before she gets back but I’ll pass on your well wishes to her.”

“I’d appreciate that.”

Costa is silent for a moment, trying to think how to phrase his question. Finally, he says, “Why did you assume I wouldn’t care how Bea is?”

Jaquie looks up at him. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. You just were always so much closer to Peter, you know? You tended to be a little -- uh -- bitter. Around Bea.”

Costa knows it’s true, and he feels a bit bad about it. “I shouldn’t have been, I know. It just seemed -- like she didn’t know how lucky she was, I guess.”

“I can understand that. I know how you felt about him.”

Costa smiles tightly. “Not a very good excuse though, is it. You were never like that to Peter.”

“They were both my friends. I didn’t want to lose Peter because of -- it just wasn’t the same for me.” She looks at him like she’s trying to figure something out. “I’m glad you’ve changed, though. I’m glad that you’d think to ask after her. And I promise, I’m not saying that to be a dick or imply that you were a bad person in uni. I just -- I think you’re a better person now.”

“I hope so,” Costa says, looking at the table.

“Costa?” Her fingers brush his knuckles, and he looks up.

“You weren’t a bad person, okay? You were a bit in your head and you were jealous of Bea and you put up some ridiculous theater, but you weren’t a bad person. Me and Pete were friends with you for a reason, alright? We wouldn’t have hung around with you if we didn’t like you.”

Costa smiles tentatively. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s good to hear.”

Something between them shifts slightly, and there’s a new comfort to their conversation after that. Despite the late hour and the knowledge that he’ll have to be up early again the next morning, he doesn’t want the evening to end. Neither, it seems, does Jaquie, because she lingers over her drink and won’t let the waiter take away their nearly finished plate of food. They talk about this and that, avoiding the topic of Bea and Peter for the rest of the evening, though it’s always at the back of Costa’s mind. He doubts it’s been entirely off Jaquie’s mind in months. When they finally pay their bill and go outside, they stand together at the curb. Costa thinks she looks lovely tonight, dressed up for the show, a few curls of her hair falling across her face. For a strange moment he thinks they’d make a good couple if he liked girls. He puts the thought out of his mind and asks, “You have a safe way home?”

“I’ll just take a cab,” Jaquie says.

“Alright, my flat’s not too far from here so I can just walk.”

“See you Thursday?”

“See you Thursday.”

They hug and Costa waits until Jaquie hails a cab before he starts walking home. It’s a little chilly, but not cold enough to bother him. He feels refreshed after talking to Jaquie, and makes a mental note to call her during his two weeks off. It seems to him that it might do her some good, too, to spend a little time with someone not deeply embroiled in Bea and Peter’s divorce. As he walks, he begins to wonder about what Jaquie had warned. It still seems utterly bizarre that she would make such a point to tell him that Peter has some piece of news when she can’t tell him what it is. He knows he’s going to start obsessing over this. There’s one more show tomorrow, followed by strike and a few meetings to wrap things up on Monday and Tuesday, but after that he’ll have nothing but time to wonder what’s going to happen at Thursday’s dinner. He reminds himself that Jaquie had told him that it isn’t bad new, but he can’t help feeling anxious about it. As many times as he tells himself that nothing is wrong, that no one is hurt, he can’t imagine what good news Jaquie would have to keep secret. Back at the flat, he turns on the radio and walks from room to room, running his fingers over the walls. One way or another, he’ll have to put it out of his head.


	5. glass cage heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She pats the top of his head, unsure how to proceed. Over the course of her life, she’s had a quite sizeable number of people come out to her, but none quite like this. “Do you need a cup of tea for your sexuality crisis?”

Jaquie has been Peter and Bea’s go-to babysitter essentially since Miriam was born. She’s generally pretty good with kids, and she and Miriam get along well. She agrees happily to look after the little girl when Peter goes on his date on Thursday, the day before she’s going to see Costa’s play. As Peter is heading out the door she tells him that she’s happy to stay the night if things go well for him. He rolls his eyes and tells her there’s no way that’s going to happen, and she’s not really expecting that it will. But Peter’s not back when she puts Miriam to bed at eight, and he’s not back when she goes to bed around midnight. He’s not even back when she gets up at nine the next morning. 

He comes in when she’s in the kitchen, making pancakes. She’s a little grateful that Miriam is upstairs, playing in her room, because she wants details right away. Grinning at him, she asks, “So, good date?”

Peter looks profoundly flustered, which she’d been expecting given his reluctance even to go on a date with his feelings for Bea still being what they are. He clears his throat. “No, actually.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, we met up, figured out pretty quickly we weren’t going to click. I mean she was nice and all but -- not each other’s types, you know?”

Jaquie isn’t entirely surprised by this -- she’d been expecting on some level that Peter’s first few attempts to date would be blocked by the fact that he doesn’t really know how to date anyone other than Bea. But it doesn’t exactly make sense given the time of day. “So what were you doing all night?”

Peter takes a seat on one of the stools at the kitchen island and props his elbows on the countertop. Jaquie raises an eyebrow at him, waiting for an explanation. Instead of replying, he points to the griddle. “Don’t burn the pancakes,” he says. 

“Oh my god, Peter, I just poured the batter, they’re fine.”

“Alright, alright.” He takes a deep breath. “So when we agreed that the date was no good, she asked me if I wanted to go out for a drink.”

“No part of this makes sense,” Jaquie comments. Who asks their failed dinner date out for drinks? Then she remembers that the person in question is a friend of hers and she kind of gets it. 

“I mean we were having a good time talking about theater, so why not? So she took me to a bar she knew.”

“Okay,” Jaquie says after a moment of silence has passed, unsure why Peter is pausing at this juncture in the narrative.   


“Do you know Navarre?”   


Jaquie’s eyes widen with delight. “The gay bar downtown?”   


“That’s the one.”

“She took you to a gay bar. That’s. Oh god.” Jaquie is still grinning, but Peter looks distinctly unsettled so she tries to tone it down. “Did you enjoy yourself?”

Peter scratches the back of his head. “I think she thought -- because I’m your friend?”

“Yeah, fair,” Jaquie says, turning to flip the pancakes over. “I don’t have many straight friends.”

“Anyway we got there and I realized what was going on and I told her that I’m not gay and she was a little surprised I think but she said that was fine, I was with her, it was an innocent mistake. So we got some drinks and -- the thing is, the thing I don’t understand, is that I wasn’t really that drunk. I wasn’t actually drunk at all. I had one beer, and you know me, it takes a couple to get me even tipsy.”

Jaquie has gone still with the spatula in her hand. “Peter? What happened?”

“I was just talking to this guy. He sat down next to us and we started chatting and he asked if I wanted to go on a walk because he wanted some fresh air, and I thought I should probably be getting home soon so I said he could walk me home. Your friend was chatting with a girl, she seemed happy enough so I didn’t feel like I was abandoning her. But we ended up taking a, uh, circuitous route home.” Peter’s face looks like he can’t decide whether he should be grinning or not.

“How circuitous?”

“I mean it started with walking around this really pretty park that’s between the bar and here but then. Um. We started making out on the bridge over the lake.” He glances up at her, the half-grin still on his face.

“And you liked it?”

“I -- yeah. I liked it. Which is weird, because, like I said. I wasn’t even drunk.”

“Well, it is possible to enjoy making out with someone without being drunk.”

“But he was a guy.”

“True.”

“So then we went to his place.”

“And?”

“I stayed the night?”

“And?”

Peter puts his head down in his arms with a slight groan. “Jaquie, stop it.”

She pats the top of his head, unsure how to proceed. Over the course of her life, she’s had a quite sizeable number of people come out to her, but none quite like this. “Do you need a cup of tea for your sexuality crisis?” 

Peter raises his head again. “That’s not what this is. It was just. A weird one-time thing, I just -- I don’t feel bad about it? Not exactly? I mean it was good, I just. I think it still sort of feels like cheating to me.”

“Okay, a couple things here,” Jaquie says, shoveling the pancakes onto a big plate and picking one up with thumb and forefinger to transfer it to another plate. She pulls a jar of nutella down and proceeds as she spreads some over the pancake for Peter. “Number one, you no longer have to be faithful to Bea. I know it’s been really rough for you and you’re still -- I don’t know. You’re still devoted to her, I get that, but you’re divorced now and you’re allowed to be with other people now. And I think it would be good for you if you were. Number two, congrats on managing to hook up with someone on your very first attempt at post-marriage dating. You’re a ridiculous human being and the rest of us mortals can only dream of having your charm.” She puts the plate in front of Peter with a fork. “You’re going to need a lot of chocolate for number three, so dig in.” Obediently, Peter picks up the fork and takes a bite. Jaquie takes a deep breath. “Number three, I want you to think a little about the fact that the first person you’ve slept with in your life who isn’t Beatrice Duke was a guy. I’m not here to label your sexuality for you or force you to deal with it before you’re ready. But maybe just -- let that stew for a while.”

Peter licks the excess nutella off his fork. “I mean, I’m not gay. I know that. I’ve been in love with Bea basically my entire life I -- I like chicks. I know that. I’m sure about that.”

“Okay,” Jaquie says. “Okay, that’s a good starting point. But it’s also very possible that you like guys as well as girls. I mean that has occurred to you, right? Your ex-wife and your best friend,” she indicates herself, “and like three other people you know are bisexual so that’s -- on your radar, right?”

“Yeah,” Peter says, mouth full of pancake. “But I mean. That’s Bea, that’s not me.” 

Jaquie reminds herself that this is all very new and difficult for Peter and resist the urge to whack him upside the head with a skillet. “Why wouldn’t it be you?”

“I’d have known before now. I’m 27, people realize if they aren’t straight before they’re 27.”

Jaquie shrugs. “Not everyone. And I mean, think about it. You’ve been with Bea forever. Like actually forever. When would you have had time to figure it out?”   


“Bea figured it out.”

“No offense,” Jaquie says, “But Bea’s a lot more self-aware than you are.”

Peter smiles reluctantly. “Yeah, fair.”

“And I mean -- you did kiss Costa that one time.”

“That was spin the bottle,” Peter says. “That was nothing, that was to make Bea jealous.”

Jaquie’s mouth twitches a little. “I was there. I gotta say, it seemed like a little more than that.”

Peter frowns. “I mean, I do  _ like  _ Costa.” Then he grins a little. “He was always a bit much, but like in a sweet way. In a cute way. And he’s got a cute smile, why wouldn’t I want to kiss him.” He pauses for a moment, then says, a little softer, “Oh.” 

“Yeah,” Jaquie says softly. “I don’t think many straight guys think of their male friends like that.”

“Yeah, I guess not.” Peter is looking down at his empty plate, a little stunned. 

“Need another pancake?” She asks, hoping Peter can hear the sympathy in her voice.

“Yes, please.”

She scoops one up with her spatula and deposits it on Peter’s plate and puts the jar of nutella in front of him so he can put on as much as he likes. “I’ll put chocolate chips in the next batch,” she says, and he looks up, smiling gratefully.

“I just -- I don’t know, I don’t know what to do with this.” 

Jaquie lifts herself up onto the counter and sits there with her legs crossed. “I mean, I think it’ll take some time. But it can mean whatever you want it to mean.”

Peter nods. “Okay. Thank you.”

“And I’m always here, whenever you need someone to talk to. I don’t turn the sound off on my phone at night.”

He reaches out and squeezes her hand. “I love you, Jacks.”

“Love you too,” she says, bending over to kiss the top of his head. “So, was the guy last night cute?”

Peter nods and something complicated happens in Jaquie’s chest when she sees that he’s blushing. 

“Good thing too,” Jaquie says. “You shouldn’t settle for anything less.” She looks up when she hears footsteps on the stairs and scoots off the counter. Miriam appears at the bottom of the stairs, still in her pajamas. 

“Hey, ladybug,” Peter says, and gets off his stool to scoop her up into a hug. “How was your evening with Aunt Jaquie?”

Miriam begins to describe, in great detail, the cartoon that they’d watched together as Peter installs her at the counter and Jaquie gets her a pancake and a glass of orange juice, as well as the honey that she likes best on any kind of breakfast food. Jaquie and Peter make eye contact and he nods in a way that she interprets as meaning,  _ we’ll talk more about this later. _

Jaquie stays until late that morning before Peter offers to drive her home. Miriam protests briefly until Jaquie tells her she’ll be back for dinner next week and that if she’s lucky she’ll be able to visit again over the weekend, at which point Miriam reluctantly agrees that she’s allowed to leave. In the car, Peter sits quiet and still for a moment before starting the car up.

“You doing alright?” Jaquie asks. His expression seems troubled to her, though she thinks he’s trying to hide it.

“Yeah,” Peter says slowly. “I’m just thinking about telling Miriam.”

Jaquie considers. “Well, if it makes you feel better, she seems to me like the kind of kid who wouldn’t be surprised if you started dating a guy.”   


Peter looks at her. “She doesn’t even properly understand that me and Bea aren’t together anymore.”

“Yeah,” Jaquie says with a sigh. “I guess it won’t be simple. But -- she’s never not going to love you. You know that, right?

Peter nods uneasily. 

“Don’t forget that,” Jaquie says. 

Peter turns the car on and they pull out of the driveway and begin toward Jaquie’s house. She isn’t sure what to say, not knowing if he wants to talk more about this right now or if he just needs some space to deal with it. Then, very quietly, Peter says, “I wish I’d realized earlier.”

“That’s not your fault,” Jaquie replies quickly. “It’s not an easy thing to figure out.”

“I just mean -- because of Bea.”

Jaquie frowns. “What do you mean?”

“I just feel like it might have changed things, you know? I guess at this point it’s difficult not to regret anything I could have done differently.”   


“Peter. You couldn’t have done this differently. It wasn’t in your control.”

“I mean with Costa -- it was pretty stupid of me not to realize.”

“That’s not -- Peter that’s not fair at all. Okay, I am not getting out of this car until you say that it’s not your fault that you didn’t realize you aren’t straight until now. It’s not being stupid it’s just -- it’s just the way it was, okay? Nothing about it is your fault.”

“Okay,” Peter says, but she’s not sure he actually believes it. For now, though, she’ll have to take it. 

When they get to her apartment, she gets out of the car and waves goodbye as Peter drives off again and climbs the stairs with a lot on her mind. One of the first things she thinks about is Costa. It occurs to her that she might tell him about this on Thursday night, and given what she knows about him and his feelings for Peter, it seems likely that he’ll keel over dead on the spot if he doesn’t have a little forewarning. On the other hand, it’s not like she can out Peter to him. She’s going to see him tonight, though, so maybe she can come up with some compromise between now and then. 

In her apartment, she thinks about making lunch and considers calling Bea. Not to tell her about Peter, but just to hear her voice. Though she hasn’t said anything about it to anyone, it’s been difficult for her with Bea off on her trip. Certainly it’s not as big an adjustment for her as it is for Peter, but still. They’ve lived in the same town ever since college and they see each other nearly every day. Other feelings aside, Bea is one of her best friends and Jaquie misses her. Perhaps not in the easy, uncomplicated way that one usually misses one’s friends, but she tries not to think about that. She checks her phone on the off chance that Bea has texted her, but there’s nothing. Maybe she’ll call this weekend. 

Poking around in the fridge, she returns to the problem of what to tell Costa. The best she can come up with is to tell him that Peter is going to tell him  _ something _ , and not to specify that something. It’s obviously not a perfect solution, but she’s not sure she has a better one. She pulls a container of leftover soup from the fridge and sticks it in the microwave and stands at the counter, tapping a spoon against it. The conversation with Peter has, for some reason, left her restless and unsure why. She’s had her suspicions for a while, but she hadn’t woken up that morning prepared for the conversation they’d had. It isn’t, she concludes, the revelation that Peter isn’t straight that’s bothering her. No, she thinks as she takes her soup out of the microwave and stands at the counter eating it, it’s the fact that he seems sad about it, and she doesn’t know how to help him. Because he’s not having a typical sexuality crisis, he isn’t feeling bad or guilty about who he is, he’s feeling disappointed that he hadn’t known earlier. She should have realized that a point would come in her life and the lives of her friends when the tone of such a realization would change, but maybe she hasn’t realized how grown-up they’ve all gotten. 

She wishes again that she could talk to Bea, but she’s not sure about what. About their college days, about life as a bi woman, about if things really would have been different if Peter had been out all along. But she still believes it’s a pointless thing to think about, because in the end no one could have changed it. Jaquie avoids regret as much as possible because it’s an entirely impractical emotion that never leads to anything good, but as it turns out, sometimes it’s more complicated that just telling yourself not to feels something. She can’t focus on anything and she’s almost relieved when it’s time to go to work in the afternoon. At the lab, she can put all her personal issues and the endlessly complicated lives of her friends to the back of her mind and focus on the work.

After work, though, standing at the bus stop with her bag over her shoulder, everything comes tumbling back in and nothing is simpler than it was in the morning. She checks her watch, and sees that there’s just enough time to go home and change into nicer clothes before she has to head to the theater. She doesn’t want to be in this strange mood for Costa’s show -- even if she has some doubts about his theatrical talents, she wants to give him a fair shot. On the bus, she puts in her earbuds and listens to the most cheerful music on her phone and is a little surprised to find that it works like a charm. Arriving back at her apartment, her head’s in a better place and she’s beginning to feel that things will sort themselves out. For tonight, she has a show to see, and she needs to find some way of preparing Costa for Thursday night’s dinner. She’d texted Peter earlier and he’d told her that he was going to tell Costa, so he really does need a bit of warning. Whatever she does, she’s pretty sure that the dinner party is going to be at least as interesting to watch as Costa’s play. 


	6. i'll breathe again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “There’s something I wanted to tell the two of you about. Jaquie knows about it already, sort of. Well, I’ve talked to her a bit about it. But I wanted you both to know.” He pauses and for an irrational moment he wonders why he’s telling them, why there’s any need to tell anyone. He could be perfectly happy for the rest of his life, keeping this to himself. Surely he could. But the thing is, he’s not happy now.

Peter has never been this nervous about dinner with friends in his entire life. As someone who doesn’t frequently get nervous, he’s not quite sure what to do with this emotion and channels it into cooking a much more elaborate meal than is strictly necessary. It ends up requiring yarn, more than half the herbs in his cabinet, and a quick trip to the store to buy a utensil he’d never heard of before this day. It comes out of the oven looking delicious, though, and it’s only when he’s finished tidying the kitchen up that his nerves hit him again. He checks his watch. They’ll be here any minute. All the anxiety he’s been repressing this whole day comes crashing down on him in one big wave and for a long minute he can’t breath. His head goes light and he has to grab the counter. This is ridiculous, he tells himself. These are his friends. These are his friends, neither of whom are straight. They love him and they’re going to support him and it’s going to be fine. It’s going to be totally fine. He starts to breathe again, long, measured breaths that sound rattly and make sharp little pains in his chest. He pours himself a glass of water. This is going to be fine.

He’s steadied himself pretty thoroughly by the time he hears a knock on the door and opens it to see Costa and Jaquie, the former with a vase of roses and the latter with a bottle of wine.

“Come in, come in. Oh, gosh, Costa, you shouldn’t have.”

“It’s very rude to visit someone and not bring them any presents,” Costa says, pushing the vase into Peter’s hands. There’s a really excessive number of roses in there, and holding the vase they’re all he can see as they block out Costa and Jaquie. 

“Here, I’ll put them on the table,” he says, hurrying away for a moment before returning to take the wine. 

“What’s for dinner?” Jaquie asks as he rummages around for a corkscrew. 

“A really atrocious chicken recipe by Julia Child, I thought I was going to die tragically at various points in its preparation.”

“Atrocious?” Jaquie says, sounding a little concerned. 

“To make, not to eat,” Peter clarifies, trying unsuccessfully to open the bottle of wine.

“Here, let me do that,” Jaquie says, taking it from his hands and removing the cork easily.

“You really have a talent,” Peter says, shaking his head.

“What can I say, I have a gift.”

She goes to fill the wine glasses on the living room table, leaving Costa and Peter standing together in the kitchen.

“Hey,” Peter says, aware that this is probably the most awkward he’s ever been with Costa in his entire life.

“Hi,” Costa replies, and Peter tries not to be grateful that he, too, seems a little nervey. Jaquie had told him that she’d warned Costa about Peter having some big news, and Peter chalked it up to that and his usual amount of excess energy.

“I heard your play was good,” Peter says. “I’m sorry I haven’t made it out to see it yet. This weekend, I hope, if I can secure Jaquie’s promise to babysit, she’s really the only one I trust with Miriam.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Costa says, thumbs rubbing rapidly at his elbows. “I know you’re under a lot of pressure and -- since it’s your first time without Bea in the house -- I just know it’s hard. I wouldn’t take it personally if you didn’t make it out.”  
“I really do want to see it, though,” Peter says, hoping Costa can tell from his tone that he’s being genuine. “Jaquie was raving about it and it’s been far too long since I got to see a play. I miss it an awful lot.”

“I’d love to see you in the audience.”

Jaquie’s head appears in the doorway. “Come on, you two, we don’t want the food to get cold.”

Costa and Peter follow her into the dining room and they stand around the table, none of them sitting down yet. Jaquie looks at Peter significantly and he clears his throat, feeling his stomach dip. 

“There’s something I wanted to tell the two of you about. Jaquie knows about it already, sort of. Well, I’ve talked to her a bit about it. But I wanted you both to know.” He pauses and for an irrational moment he wonders why he’s telling them, why there’s any need to tell anyone. He could be perfectly happy for the rest of his life, keeping this to himself. Surely he could. But the thing is, he’s not happy now. A long way from it. And a lot of that is because of Bea and the divorce, but there’s also a chance that this is a piece of his unhappiness, too, and that talking about it will lighten the weight, if only a little. He wants to tell them. 

“Yes?” Costa says, and Peter sees Jaquie try to kick him, though she lands a little short. He grins, and suddenly it doesn’t feel difficult at all.

“I think I might be bisexual.” It feels difficult again as soon as he’s said the words and has to watch Costa’s face, trying to gauge his reaction. Costa’s eyebrows go up, his mouth opens a little, and then his face goes utterly blank.

“Oh,” he says. He looks at Jaquie, then back at Peter. “That’s lovely.”

“Is it?” Peter says with a lovely laugh.

Costa shrugs. “Well, all the bisexuals I know are lovely.”

Peter’s heart feels a million times lighter. Of course he had known that Costa would be fine with it, that he would be sweet about it, but somehow that hadn’t made it any less frightening. 

“I just wanted to tell you because I realized pretty recently and I’m still thinking about it and you two -- I’ve known you for ages and I love you both so much and I trust you. Seemed like a good place to start while I’m still figuring myself out.”

Costa puts both hands over his heart and makes his patented,  _ I’m deeply touched  _ face, and says, “I’m deeply touched.” Then he moves over to Peter’s side of the table. “Come here, I’m giving you a hug.”

Peter chuckles a little nervously, but in truth he’s grateful for this physical contact, for the palpable affection radiating off Costa. “I’m very proud of you,” Costa says. 

Miriam comes in and pads up to them, hugging Peter’s knees and he reaches down to rub her head. “Hey, ladybug,” he says.

Costa squats down to be at eye level with her. “Hey there, sweetheart,” he says. “I haven’t seen you in ages, you’ve gotten so big!” 

“Do you remember Costa?” Peter asks, and Miriam shakes her head. 

“That’s alright,” Costa says. “We can get to know each other all over again. I like getting to know people.”

Peter smiles, momentarily overwhelmed by the sweetness of the people in his life. Really, he’s pretty lucky in spite of all the bad things happening in his life right now.  Not everyone has friends to support and love them.

He picks Miriam up to put her in her booster seat and says, “She’s not very talkative at first but if you come round more often she’ll get more friendly.”

“That’s true,” Jaquie says. “The first time I babysat for them she spoke maybe five words to me but now we have nice long chats, don’t we?”

Miriam chews on her spoon, eyes huge. 

“Just stage fright,”Peter says. He serves the chicken, cutting up Miriam’s portion into tiny pieces before putting it on her plate. Really, he thinks, he’s lucky to have a daughter like her, too. Not many kids her age would be willing to try out Peter’s Julia Child recipes. 

“So,” Costa says, “How long have you known --” And he stops abruptly and makes a pained noise. Probably Jaquie stepping on his foot. If the two of them spent an evening together, it would leave Costa well bruised and Jaquie thoroughly irritated. He never manages to say the right thing in front of her. In this case, though, Peter’s glad she stopped him from finishing what he had started to say, because he suspects it’s not something he would have wanted Miriam to hear. Not in this context, anyway. 

“Costa,” he says hastily, to cover the silence. “Tell me about your play.”

Costa launches into a description of the plot, his role in producing it, the actors, the set, everything in great detail as just Peter had expected. He’s genuinely interested and glad to hear about it, but he’s also taking advantage of Costa’s willingness to be distracted by all matters artistic. 

When he finishes his explanation, he takes a bite of chicken and his eyes go round with delight. He barely takes the time to finish swallowing before he says, “But Peter, this is wonderful!”

Peter laughs. “I’m glad you think so. It did nearly take my life.”

Costa slaps a hand to his chest. “That sacrifice would not have been worth it, but a slightly lesser one might have been. Truly this is the best food I’ve ever eaten.”

Costa’s praises, as usual, were high to the point of being difficult to respond to. “Thanks,” Peter replies, unsure what else to say.

The actual dinner goes relatively smoothly, with only a few more instances of Jaquie stepping on Costa’s foot to prevent him from saying unwise things in front of Miriam. After dinner and dessert, Peter takes Miriam up to bed and returns to find Jaquie and Costa laughing together on the couch. Peter sits down in an armchair by them.

“If memory serves,” he says, “you two didn’t always get along this well.”

“No,” Jaquie says, wiping away a tear of laughter. “We definitely didn’t.”

“I think we both grew up a lot,” Costa says, pulling his bare feet (Peter sees that he’s left his shoes on the floor with the socks stuffed in them -- an old and familiar habit) up on the couch. Jaquie looks at him and he corrects himself. “I grew up a lot.”

“You learned how to shut up from time to time,” Jaquie says with a grin.

“Yes, true,” Costa says, looking properly abashed. 

“I cannot believe how much you used to talk, I couldn’t get a word in edgewise.” 

“I’ve learned, haven’t I?”

“Yes,” Jaquie says. “I think probably from only being friends with women.”

“I’m friends with Peter.”

“Name one other male friend.”

Costa opens his mouth as if to reply and then shuts it. “Alright,” he says. “Fair point.”

Peter smiles at them, overcome with affection. “It’s good to see you both in one place again. Feels like old times.”

“So,” Costa says, leaning forward, expression intent. “Tell us everything.” Jaquie slaps his shoulder and he amends this to, “Tell us anything you’re comfortable telling us.”

“She’s got you trained,” Peter says with a laugh. 

“Yes,” Costa admits. “A little bit. But do tell.”

Peter shrugs, remembering how difficult it is actually to talk about this. “I don’t know. I met a guy.”

“Are you dating?” Costa asks.

Peter shakes his head and laughs. “No, nothing like that. It was just a one night thing. But -- I think I might want to date. Eventually?”  
“You know --” Costa says, glancing at Jaquie as though to confirm that he’s allowed to proceed, “if you ever need anyone to talk to, you can come to either of us. I know neither of us has been in your exact situation but -- we’ve been in the general neighborhood of where you are right now.”

Peter smiles. “I appreciate that.” It’s difficult to imagine calling either of them up to talk about it, though. It’s difficult to imagine talking to anyone about it of his own free will. He knows he should, that it’s the healthy thing to do, but it still feels like pulling teeth. After a moment of expectant silence from them, he sighs and says, “I guess I just don’t know what to tell you. There’s not a lot to say. I thought I knew who I was, and I didn’t. I thought my life was all set, and it wasn’t.”

“It’s not all a tragedy,” Costa says carefully. “I mean, it’s definitely tough, I get that. But at the same time -- it’s pretty cool that you’re coming up on thirty and still learning big new things about yourself. You know, in case you were ever worried about getting bored with yourself.”

Peter had never worried about that, but it’s sweet of Costa to put it in a comforting way. 

“You know,” Jaquie says, “when I was figuring out in high school that I liked girls I just started reading all the books I could about it. Not textbook stuff, that just depressed me, but like, stories. Novels and things. I swear I read every terrible lesbian YA novel in existence, I know them all. Though there weren’t as many then as there are now. Might not be the right reading level for you, though.”

“Possibly not,” Peter says with a laugh. 

“I don’t actually remember figuring it out,” Costa muses, looking up at the ceiling. “I was really young. I remember I told my parents I wanted to marry a boy in my year back in primary school, but I know that wasn’t the first time I’d thought about it. I already knew I was gay -- not that I knew the word -- before I ever heard anyone told me that I shouldn’t be. Lucky, I guess. Not the being told I shouldn’t be gay, obviously, but the knowing beforehand. Made the whole thing, I suspect, much less like fumbling in the dark.”

“I don’t know if there’s actually anything I need,” Peter says, fidgeting with a loose strand on the arm of his seat. “It’s just adjustment, that’s all. And making sure that I’m not making it up in my head.”

“You’re not making it up,” Jaquie says. “No matter what you decide you are -- what you’re feeling isn’t fake.”

Peter nods, but it’s difficult for him fully to believe that. He’d never doubt someone else talking about their sexuality, but when it comes to himself, his head is such a muddle that it’s difficult to say what’s real and what’s not. He has too many conflicting feelings to have any certainty of what he should believe in. Knowing that it could all just be temporary only makes it worse. He isn’t sure he’ll really be able to talk to anyone about it until he has some more time just to sit with the idea that he’s probably not actually straight. “I’m afraid I’ve slightly derailed the evening,” he says, looking up at them with a smile he hopes looks casual. “This really was supposed to be a chance to catch up, to talk about everything. Not just me and my gay midlife crisis.” He means it to be a little funny and self-deprecating, but he’s not entirely sure by the Costa and Jaquie’s expressions that he’s actually pulled it off.

But they do talk about everything, moving off of Peter’s sexuality to Peter’s great relief and onto Costa’s play and Jaquie’s career and his own work and old stories from their college days -- all easier topics for him. At last Jaquie looks down at her watch and swears loudly, making Costa jump. “Sorry, dear,” she says, reaching out to touch his arm. “But christ it’s late, we’d better head out, I have to drop Costa by his flat before I go home. We should do this again though, it’s been so good to see you both. And both in the same place. Peter, remember what I said about my phone.”

They gather at the front door and both Jaquie and Costa hug him. They keep touching his arms, squeezing his hands, being so physically present for him that he almost wants to tell them to stop. But he doesn’t actually want them to stop. It’s comforting in a way he hadn’t expected, in a way he doesn’t want to have to do without. It’s just that he feels embarrassed about needing it. He knows how Bea would look at him if he said that out loud, though, so he tries to stop thinking it. They go out and he stands on the threshold waving as they get into Jaquie’s car and drive away. Then he turns slowly and goes back inside.

Peter closes the door behind himself and leans against it, closing his eyes. He still has to do the dishes and tidy up, but all he really wants to do is go lie in the dark. For some reason he can’t put his finger on, the evening, while enjoyable, has left him completely exhausted. Like being in a play. Maybe that’s it -- that going through this whole coming out thing feels in some way like a performance. Maybe it shouldn’t because it’s about being honest, about being himself, and theater is supposed to be about being someone else. But for Peter, theater has often been about finding his most genuine self. Maybe for him, being his most genuine self feels being on stage.

He shakes himself and clears the dishes from the table and begins to clean them. As he’s stacking them in the dish drain, he hears the familiar sound of Miriam coming slowly down the stairs and looks up to see her on the landing a few steps above the kitchen floor. Drying his hands he goes over to her and picks her up, balancing her on his hip. “What’s up ladybug?” He asks. “You’re supposed to be asleep, you know.”

Miriam nods sleepily and leans on his shoulder. “I woke up ‘n got scared.”

“Aw, poor girl. Do you wanna come stay in my room?”

Miriam nods into his neck. And then she says, “I wish mummy were here.” 

It stings, even though Peter knows it shouldn’t. “Me too, ladybug,” he says, shutting off the kitchen lights and starting up the stairs to his room.    
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Shreeya for proofing!


End file.
